Life Uncommon
by psycho pixie
Summary: Rated for language. Kagome's life is about to get pretty uncommon . . . or more uncommon than it is already, anyways. N/K No flames, please. Humor me; the first chapter sucks.


AN: Just a short prologue.  The beginning is weird, but it's a dream sequence.  (Oops! Just killed the surprise, lol.)  You guys are gonna KILL me for this story.  Skewed couple, beware!  Not K/S.  Not K/I. Not K/K.  Not K/M (though if Sandra doesn't update Oddity and Chasing Methuselah, I'm going to have to HUNT HER DOWN.  THAT'S A PROMISE!).  And not yuri.  Gee, who's left??  Kagome's POV, for the most part, but you know me.  How long with _that_ last? Jumps around between her and . . . . someone else.  Please don't hurt me for this pairing!  I just couldn't get it out of my head—everything else is on hiatus, I just can't concentrate on anything but this. (Can't tell by reading this, because it sucks.)  So please no flames! I've had a bad week.  If you can't say something nice . . . don't say anything at all.  Or you can lie.  I have no objections to that.

* = Scene change

~*~ = POV change

*

I do learn my lesson from time to time; I'm not _entirely_ stupid.  And one of the lessons I have learned is that walking into a mist in broad daylight, whether it seems natural or unnatural, is _most likely_ bad.  It's even _more_ likely to be bad should the mist separate you from your friends.  And it's _definitely_ bad if the mist not only seems to have a mind of its own and shoves you in a direction you don't particularly want to go, but you start sensing jewel shards in the mist.

Basically, if mist starts getting a mind of its own, you're probably going to die.

Which is exactly what was going through my head when Inuyasha, Miroku, Sango, and Shippou disappeared into the mist.  I coughed once before I really comprehended they were gone; the mist seemed heavier than normal and made my lungs ache.  "Hey, is it just me, or . . . hello?"

No answer—of course.  Why would I get one?  I had walked into pea soup and wandered into the middle of BFE.

"HEY!" I exclaimed.  "Inuyasha?"

" . . Gome?" I heard his faint voice in the distance.

"INUYASHA!" 

"He can't hear you," came a voice.

Was the mist talking to me?  

_It's not mist, you little idiot!  It's miasma!_ I flinched at the explosion from my own brain.

Oh.  Well that wasn't good.

I drew my bow and notched an arrow nervously.  "Naraku?" I called edgily.  I didn't sense any—

Aha.  _Now _I sensed jewel shards.

"Put the bow down," he told me from nowhere in particular.  It was really like the miasma was talking to me.  "What would you shoot at?"

"You," I said through chattering teeth, but I knew what he meant.  How could I kill him if he wasn't technically there?  "Where is Inuyasha?"

"Why do you care?" he retorted.  "For all you know, I killed him."

"And everyone else?" I asked, ignoring him.  Maybe he was lying . . .

"Kohaku has found Sango," his voice informed me.  "I believe right now, he is attempting to kill her and her fire-cat.   The monk, on the other hand, is actually drawing the world around him into the air rip I so graciously blessed his family with.  His largest concern is drawing your party in with him."

"Haven't you done this before?" I asked angrily.

If he had been in a physical form, I think he would have shrugged.  "It's rather enjoyable.  The human mind is so easy to manipulate with its own darkest fears."

I swallowed and wandered through the hanging mist, looking for something—anything.  Maybe one of my friends.  "What about Shippou?" I called into the air.

"His mind is perhaps the easiest of all to manipulate—perhaps because he is so young."

"You evil—"

"You flatter me."

"Why?" I demanded, slipping when my foot hit slick mud.  "Don't you have better things to do with your time, like pillaging a defenseless village and stealing some poor kid's lunch money?"

No answer.

"Okay, so what about hunting jewel shards?"

"I have yours, in case you've forgotten."

I darkened.  "That Kikyo _stole _from me."

"Yes, well, I have them all the same.  So tell me, human, why haven't you entered your own nightmare?" he wondered from all around.  "I notice that even your half-demon has become entrenched in his, so why not you in yours?"

I hesitated.  "I don't know."

A figure began to take shape out of the miasma, and I hit my knee to ready the bow a bit nervously.  "They're dead, you know," he told me with a cruel smile, crimson eyes sparkling with evil mirth.

I blinked. "What?"

"Your friends."

"But you said—"

"Yes, I said this; I said that.  Really, you _are_ naïve.   Take _my_ word on it?  You're perfectly free to do that, although I don't recommend it myself.  What I find the most amusing is the way you take _everything _I say to heart, as though it's the ordained truth, and yet aren't I the enemy?  Shouldn't I be the _last _person you listen to?"

I swallowed the fear that had been threatening to consume me since I had lost sight of Inuyasha.  "I guess I just pegged you for the type to take more pleasure in the awful truth than a lie, as I thin k lying is the sign of a coward."

"And you don't consider me cowardly."

"You're just about everything else, but you're not a coward."

"Interesting," he 'hmm'ed, folding his arms as he continued to smile.  "I would never have guessed." 

"Are they alive?" I asked flatly, lowering the bow.

He shrugged.  "Come see for yourself."

I made a move to walk to him, unsure of how I would see it . . .

*

"Kagome?"

"Nnngh."

"Hey.  Get up."

"Mmmph," I muttered into my arm.

"Dammit, I swear I'll kick the hell out of you if you don't wake up!"

That would be Inuyasha.

" . . . Not dead?" I asked thickly, eyes opening slowly.

I was greeted by flashing gold. "Who, me or you?  Because if it's you, then I can fix that problem!" he snapped. 

I let out a groan.  "'M tired!" I wailed.  "Let me sleep!"

"The sun's already up!  I DID let you sleep!"

"It didn't count! I had bad dreams!"

Weird dreams.  Why?  What had I done wrong to deserve such freaking weird dreams?  _Nothing,_ that's what.  Any dream about Naraku is a weird dream, and not a dream I wanted.

Wait.  What if it was a premonition?  I mean . . . I was a priestess in a former life, I could do that.  Right?  So that meant . . . maybe . . . 

"Oh cry me a river!" he threw back.  "If bad dreams were excuses, then . . ."

"Then what?"

"Then just shut the hell up!" he snapped irritably.  "I wasn't going to make a point!"

"Oh.  Are we close to Kaede's village?" I asked as I sat up slowly, stiffly.  "I have a physics test on Thursday."

"What's Thursday?"

"I explained days to you, Inuyasha!  Three days, I have to go home for the day in three days!"

"Why?" he replied stoutly.

"I HAVE A PHYSICS TEST!"

"So what's physics?"

"SIT! I'M AWAKE, I GET IT!"

And with Inuyasha effectively embedded in the ground for an indefinite period of time, I stood up haughtily, nose in the air, and brushed the dirt off of my clothes, ready for the rest of the day after that wonderful wake-up call.  Miroku just gave me a long-suffering smile from his seat on a rock, and Sango bid me a light 'good-morning.'  Inuyasha flung muffled curses at me from the ground once he could talk around a mouthful of dirt.

It was going to be along day.

~*~

Interesting specimen, this human girl.  The reincarnation of the mighty Kikyo, right down to her powers of purification, and yet so temperamental.  If I didn't know that she was only seventeen, I would think _her_ soul was impure, but it's just young.

So very different from Kikyo . . . she's just a shell now, wandering around only to steal the souls of the living and someday kill Inuyasha.  It seems this girl—Kagome—took the very humanity and life that made Kikyo the formidable woman that she was.  But she doesn't seem to be weakened and disillusioned by a foolish half-demon as her predecessor was.

She senses jewel shards as well.  That must be how she was able to hit me with that purified arrow.  I myself have a bit of that talent as well, otherwise I would . . . _enlist _her services.  I simply can't have Inuyasha running around with a weapon as powerful as I suspect that girl may be, so that leaves me very few options on what to do with that girl.

But I have bigger problems to worry about right now, that don't involve a meddlesome human child.  I need only the shards from that wolf-demon—Koga, I think—the three from the monk, the shard from the boy's back, and then a scant few others that no one has found yet, and the jewel will be complete.  It was a great advantage to me for Kikyo to give me the girl's shards; it brings me even closer to my goal, and then it won't matter if the girl—Kagome?—can sense shards and purify the jewel, because I don't plan on letting her get close enough to do that.  She and her party are not my problem right now; I have other pressing matters to attend.

But she does make for interesting observation.


End file.
